KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Yesterday as the Chiefs were struggling toward the end of the game, losing players left and right to injuries, running out of playmakers on the offensive side of the ball, I mentioned that they were going to need a minor miracle or a major one to pull this game out and win it. At the time, Cincinnati was driving and had some serious mojo behind them.
That drive failed, and then with the 29-yard runback on the punt, and then the fateful unnecessary roughness penalty, the miracle had occurred and the Chiefs were in field goal position… and you know the rest.
In some ways, we may need that same type of “weather” miracle at this point to get our seasonal snow totals to anywhere near average. We’re stuck at 4.7 inches and it doesn’t appear we’ll add anything significant to that total for at least the next 7-10 days.
And all of a sudden, it’s going to be approaching mid-February and there may not be much more snow added on.
The bizarre winter continues.
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Kansas City Forecast
Today: Cloudy skies with the potential of some clearing towards sunset. Cold with highs only in the upper teens to near 20 degrees.
Tonight: Clear and cold with lows near 8 degrees.
Tomorrow: Partly cloudy and not as cold with highs near 30 degrees.
Wednesday: Seasonable with highs approaching 42 degrees.
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Discussion
A cold air mass has moved into the region. The Arctic air came into the area late Saturday on time and the cold air drained into the region aided by gusty north winds. Now we’re in it, and the combination of leftover moisture around 6,000 feet and the cold air with a lack of wind to stir things up means we are “stuck in the muck” for the day it appears.
The satellite this morning shows the cloud cover as rather extensive through the Plains:
In the southern Plains, there is an ice storm in progress with sleet and freezing rain the most common type of precipitation with some snow as well farther south.
The morning surface map shows this arctic air dropping into the region. I’ve highlighted areas of winter precipitation out west and down south.
There are reports of thundersnows and thundersleets down in Oklahoma with Winter Storm Warnings and Winter Weather Advisories in effect for many areas of the south
That is some cold air up there for sure, with sub-zero temperatures all over the place.
As usual though locally, when we get the low clouds trapped in the area at night it never drops to what some would think with this cold air in place. We get “stuck” so essentially from 10 p.m. to now, we’ve changed 2 degrees. That’s it. The clouds act like a blanket.
Tonight we likely won’t have the clouds to act as a blanket, especially after midnight. We should tank pretty efficiently, so single digit lows are likely.
The arctic air will release later tomorrow and we should moderate from there with occasional dry fronts coming through every so often. Temperatures over the coming 10-plus days will be variable, but overall mild.
This month will likely finish in the top 10 of warmest Januarys on record in KC.
February is overall looking mild for the first half of the month at least. There will be occasional cold shots, but they won’t last long and should move along quickly.
What’s the window for snow in KC?
The snow situation though isn’t looking that promising. The EURO model out through 15 days is awful:
The GFS ensembles aren’t that great either, but there are a few that are bullish.
Those three to four members with the more bullish snows are likely throwing off the means. You take those out of the equation and it’s not looking great either.
Let’s just say we are still about where we are now for snow totals through the 10th.
We’d still be in the top 20 for snowless winter snows.
From there, we are essentially down to about five weeks left to get snow. There are some very late-season snows on occasion, but the snow window around here tends to close heading towards mid-March. Last year it closed for good on March 10.
Recently in the last 20-plus years, here are the last dates that we’ve seen at least 1/10 inch of snow.
And here’s when we’ve had the last 1 inch or more of snow:
You can see why we need to get snow going around here, if not in the first 10 days of February then not too far after that.
The feature photo comes from Jerry Delgado.
Joe
